Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) resisted mounting efforts in his own party to include a renewable electricity standard (RES) in his last-ditch attempt to pass an energy bill this summer, even as several Democratic senators openly questioned his assertions that the electricity standard lacks support.

Reid instead raced toward debate this week on the $15 billion bill that offers $5 billion in rebates for energy efficiency retrofits in homes, $3.8 billion to encourage the use of natural gas trucks, and $400 million to study electric cars. The measure would be paid for by increasing a tax on the oil industry.

The bill would also remove the nation's current $75 million liability cap on offshore oil companies responsible for spilling crude. The provision would be applied retroactively to BP PLC and other firms, making them pay the full cost of a spill.

Republicans might see that as an invitation for dissent. Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, the top Republican on the Energy Committee, who offered her own bill last Friday with a plan to spread the risk of major catastrophes across the entire oil industry, said yesterday that Reid's liability cap is the "biggest-ticket item" for her party.

"I think that unlimited liability will be a very significant issue. Not just for Republicans," Murkowski said, warning of economic reverberations. "It is not an issue that the Democrats are united on."

Industry supporters also charged out against Reid's provision, warning that unlimited liability threatens to push small and medium-size drilling firms out of business in the United States, leaving the Gulf of Mexico open only to those international conglomerates that can afford to insure themselves against catastrophes.

"This would cut domestic production, kill American jobs, slow economic growth and cost billions in federal oil and natural gas revenues," Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute, said in a statement.

62 senators want RES

But the bill rubs Democrats for what it's omitting. Many see an RES as an achievable goal that could spark construction of manufacturing plants for wind turbines and drive the development of clean energy. Several senators, including Mark Udall (D-Colo.) and Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), said yesterday that support for a modest RES that requires utilities to find 15 percent of their power by 2020 exists in the Senate.

"It seems to me that would be logical to include that [RES] in the energy bill that was going to be brought to the floor," said Dorgan, whose state stands to be a key generator of wind power. "I hope maybe there's a way to be found to do that."

Udall said there are about 62 senators who would support the 15 percent standard.

Those assertions are gaining urgency as wind developers appear to be reacting negatively to the Senate's vexations this year on clean energy policy. The American Wind Energy Association announced yesterday that new wind development dropped 71 percent in the first half of 2010, compared to last year.

"The U.S. wind industry is in distress," Denise Bode, the group's CEO, said in a statement, insisting that the Senate would support an RES this year.

But Reid has shrugged off those demands, indicating that he knows his chamber and how it would react to the introduction of an RES.

"The numbers that we have indicate that those votes are not there," he said yesterday.

Time is also not a friend. Reid expects to bring the streamlined energy bill to the floor for debate later this week and convene a vote to proceed next week. He will decide after the vote whether to allow amendments, one avenue that RES supporters hope will be open to advance the electricity standard.

Meanwhile, Reid also plans to take up several other measures before adjourning for a month at the end of next week. He wants to finish a small-business lending package today, then move to a food safety bill, then to energy. Reid also has to carve out time next week to confirm nominee Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court.